Demon In a Bottle: Night is Calling
by Asgardian Honor Society
Summary: Prompt/trailer/ficlet. Tony is safe and sound at the bottom of a bottle but how long until his free fall from the top ends at rock bottom and how many people will he hit on the way down? StevexTony


_**Demon In a Bottle**_

_Night is Calling {and It Whispers to Me Softly "Come and Play."_

_a Steve**x**Tony ficlet/trailer_

_***+~_A/N**_ I don't even know, really, with this story. I was creating my super angsty tragedy music mix and burning it to CDs and as I drew up the list for "Sober" by P!nk came up and I thought, "Yo, wait a minute...this song is Tony's fucking life. FANFICTION TIME!" And I have nowhere near the adequate stamina or patience for a what a full version of this story would be so this is basically this is a ficlet and trailer for a full version and a call for someone and anyone to fill this prompt. You can specifically intersperse lyrics throughout the fic, you can just use the general basis of the song, you can make fanart or a fan video {omygod, PLEASE DO, fanart and fanvids are the best thing EVER}, you can write a long, super-plotty fannovel, you can do basically what I did and write a ficlet, I would just love to see anyone make **something **out of this. Just be sure to mention the prompt itself and the trailer and give credit where credit is due to me, P!nk for the beautiful song and Marvel for the incredible fandom that is **The Avengers**._

* * *

_I don't wanna be the girl that laughs the loudest_

_or the girl who never wants to be alone_

_I don't wanna be that girl at four o'clock in the morning_

_'cause I'm the only one you know in the world that won't be home_

"Hey, buddy, it'd been last call for a while. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here," the bartender says, wiping down the countertop with a small chuckle and a not overly-concerned look at Tony who is the last patron still at the bar.

"Oh, no," Tony mutters, swirling a manicured finger around the rim of his brandy glass and smiling wanly at the soft ringing sound it produces. "Anywhere but there." Then Tony flashes him a brilliant smile before hopping off the leather padded stool and staggering to the door, hand already reaching for his phone.

_Ah ah-ah, sun is blinding_

_Ah ah-ah stayed up again_

"The sun does _not _get to be so damn bright and cheery when I'm barely coherent. It's indecent."

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Shakespeare." Tony's eyes open to alight on the tal, blonde, bemusedly smiling form of Captain America.

_Oh oh-oh, I am finding_

_That's not the way I want my story to end_

Tony looks up from the tumbler glass that has just fallen from his hand and shattered in a starburst pattern on the hardwood floor with a dazed expression on his handsome face.

"I can't do this anymore," are his last words before he rises unsteadily from his armchair and towards Steve. Steve anticipates this and rushes forward to steer him around the broken glass. Bundling a thoroughly inebriated Tony into his arms his he holds him as they sink together to the floor and the near hysterical laughter that bubbles up out of his throat turns into shoulder wracking sobs.

Tony doesn't appear to notice the bloody seeping steadily from the cut across his palm as he wraps his hands tight in Steve's shirt.

This is when Steve knows that Tony's free fall from the top has finally ended at rock bottom.

_I'm safe up_

_Nothing can touch me_

_So why do I feel this party's over?_

_No pain inside_

_You're my protection_

_So how do I feel this good sober?_

Tony raises the tall, slim glass of vodka to his lips with a trembling hand, tears spilling out over his cheeks one after the other like divers over the edge.

"_F__ucking perfect to me." _He sings the words soft and brokenly before bringing the glass to his mouth and downing it one four massive gulps without wincing.

_I don't wanna be the girl that has to fill the silence_

_The quiet scare me 'cause it screams the truth_

_Please don't tell me that we've had that conversation_

_No, I won't remember, save your breath_

_'Cause what's the __use_

"...listening to me? Tony? _Tony!_" Pepper's voice broke through his mental fog curtain and Tony looked up to meet her partly irritated, mostly worried gaze.

"I'm sorry Pep, were you saying something?"

By the time Pepper turned to exchange a troubled glance with Steve, Coulson and Clint who stood off by the lab entrance, Tony had already drifted away and was no longer paying attention.

_Ah ah-ah, night is falling_

_and it whispers to me softly, "Come and play."_

_I, I am falling_

_and if I let myself go, I'm the only one to blame_

There was nothing but stunned silence as Tony's fist connected with Clint's cheekbone.

Then suddenly, an explosion of sound as Clint staggered back spitting and snarling and Bruce and Natasha rushed forward to hold Tony back. Coulson held clint up while leveling Tony with a look of cold, calculating fury and something like disappointment. Thor thundered for to Coulson attend to Clint and Steve?

Steve just stared somberly at Tony before striding forward and taking him by the elbow and leading him out of the room. Th elook on Steve's face almost turned the roiling, misplaced rage in Tony's stomach with guilt.

Almost.

_I'm safe up_

_Nothing can touch me_

_So why do I feel this party's over?_

_No pain inside_

_You're my protection_

_So how do I feel this good sober?_

_Comin' down, comin' down, comin' down_

Steve's head drop into his hands as he sinks to his knees before a sleeping Tony.

"I love you," he whispers. "I love you so much."

_Spin around, spin around, spin around_

Tony stumbled as he whirled around.

"What the-where the fuck am I? What is this?" He trips up to the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling dark glass partition. He bangs on it, once experimentally and then in earnest.

No response. He was trapped.

**_"LET ME OUT!"_**

_Looking for myself sober_

"Maybe this is how I was meant to be."

Steve looks up, momentarily confused before realisation dawns and he looks so familiarly agonised.

"Tony, _no_, don't _say-_"

"May be I'm so goddamn broken because that's how I was meant to be. And _stay_"

_When it's good, then it's good, it's so good till it goes bad  
Till you're trying to find the you that you once had  
_

Tony's death grip on Steve's hand tightens and he looks up to meet Tony's anguished gaze.

"God, Steve, I'm trying, I try so hard because I _love you _and I want-" here his voice breaks and he swallows past the lump in his throat audibly. "i _want _to be _better for you _but if I don't-if I _can't..." _his grip tightened. "What will be almost as horrible as knowing that I've failed you..."

Tony takes a deep, shuddering breath.

"...will be knowing that it is not a single person's fault but _mine_."

_I have heard myself cry, never again  
Broken down in agony just tryna find a friend_

_"Somebody help me!"_

Tony's terror-stricken cry resonates in the torrential downpour as he sinks to his knees and screams up at a dark, stormcloud choked sky.

The rain continues to fall and no one comes to his aid.

_I'm safe up_

_Nothing can touch me_

_So why do I feel this party's over?_

_No pain inside_

_You're my protection_

_So how do I feel this good sober?_

_How do I feel this good sober?_

"Tony? Tony, are you alright. Tony? _Tony!"_

These words and Rhodey, Steve and Pepper's frantic tones along with Coulson barking into his comm for medical back up are the last Tony registers as the ground rushes up like an old friend to meet him. As his eyes flutters shut he sees Coulson, Pepper, and Rhodey's feet thundering towards him and Steve's distraught face hovering before his.

_How did he get here so fast? Clint must have shown him some ninja skills. Clint..Clint, I'm sorry. I hate it when I make Steve's face look like that, so worried and like he..._ and then Tony's world fell to dark as one final shout pierced the darkness.

_"Tony!"_

_**A/N_ **Wow, that was...fucking angsty. Wasn't what I thought it would end up being but then again, that is my claim to fanfiction fame. Comments, reviews, and general feedback are always welcomed, appreciated, and coveted :3_


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